


Fade

by prinecssleia (jensenackals)



Category: The Folk of the Air - Holly Black
Genre: F/M, cardan's pov, emo hours, tcp & twk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 15:13:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17490299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jensenackals/pseuds/prinecssleia
Summary: A collection of scenes and moments from tcp and twk from Cardan's POV because I love pain.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It ain't no wonder why we lose control_   
>  _When we're always heart attack away from falling in love_
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> HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAURYN!!

 

 

A hideous _smack_ reverberates around the courtyard. Cardan and Valerian turn toward the sound to find Nicasia standing tall and proud above a crouching Jude, one hand clutching her cheek. Cardan’s breath comes short and shallow as a flare of temper rises in the space between his lungs.

They have made an artform out of tormenting Jude, but this was sloppy, even for Nicasia. How dare she be so blatant in front of everyone. In front of Noggle. Their instructor had indulged Cardan’s whim earlier but even elderly teachers had their limits.

“You can’t do that,” Jude says through clenched teeth as she stands. Everyone in their class is frozen, all eyes on what Nicasia will do next.

“I may do whatever I wish.” Nicasia scoffs. She looks toward Cardan for validation, her eyes glittering with malice, but he can’t indulge her. His displeasure must be clear on his face because Nicasia flushes with embarrassment and instead looks to Valerian for assistance.

“Are you calling me out?” Jude asks, standing and brushing the dirt from her skirts. “Because then its my right to choose the time and weapon.”

Valerian stands with a sneer, lazily plucking a rotten apple from a tree as he goes. Cardan can see where this is headed and briefly looks to Locke to gauge his reaction. His friend meets his eye and raises a single brow as if in challenge.

He’s waiting to see if Cardan will stop this debacle or join it.

Several comets streak across the sky. Noggle is crying out for them to jot down the trajectory but Cardan can’t be bothered. Jude has lifted her gaze, her eyes following the shooting stars as they race toward the horizon.

Her hair spills loose around her shoulders, her head tipped back exposing the curve of her neck, the jut of her collarbones. She’s flushed, dirty, and obstinate but as her expression softens, Cardan is loathe to think that she might be the most beautiful creature he’s ever seen.

The spell is quickly broken however by Valerian shoving the faerie fruit roughly in Jude’s mouth. She coughs and sputters, spitting the rotten pulp to the ground.

Judging my her frantic movements, She is already feeling the effects of the juice. Nicasia and Jude grab for the lunch basket at the same time but former comes away victorious, holding Jude’s saving grace just out of reach. An awful sort of glee blooms deep in Cardan’s chest at the thought of his nemesis brought so low.

Valerian shoves Jude again and this time she goes down. He is on top of her in an instant, shoving more fruit into her face. “Let that sweeten that sour tongue of yours-”

Jude is clearly suffocating under Valerian’s harassment. Her quartz brown eyes are wide and panicked as she fights to get him off her.

“Do something!” Flossflower yells to no one in particular but it spurs Cardan into action. Without sparing Nicasia a second glance, he grabs the little pouch of salt from her hands and kicks Valerian hard in the ribs.

“Enough!” He hears himself shout as Jude gasps for air. Valerian looks ready to start throwing punches but Cardan doesn’t care. The great oaf could have, _would have_ , killed her. His affliction, his perversion, his Jude.

She laughs. At least Cardan thinks she laughs, it's an awful grating sound that bubbles up between coughs and sniffs and it pulls both boys out of their enmity.

“Ruin my fun will you?” Valerian spits from the forest floor, finally backing off.

The class watches with bated breath, Jude still gasping for air and Cardan standing over her, the antidote to her current state clutched in his hands. However, she isn’t looking at him like she normally does. That spark of hatred, that fight, has gone out and Cardan realizes with terror that he wants it back. He can’t abide her just sitting there, looking doe-eyed and compliant.

He tosses the salt in the wind.

Jude watches as her last hope scatters in the air but doesn’t give any reaction. If anything, it looks as if the fruit is taking a deeper hold on her state of mind. She sways slightly in the warm breeze.

“What’s wrong with you, Valerian-” Cardan demands, tearing his eyes away from Jude. “If she dies your little prank is over before it begins.”

“I’m not going to die,” Jude reassures them. Her voice is high pitched and breathy. Cardan hates it.

“Prince Cardan,” Noggle interrupts. “She ought to be taken home..”

“Everyone is so dull today.” Cardan tries, and fails, to keep his voice steady in a poor attempt at boredom. In truth, he is feeling all sorts of warring emotions.

Noggle is right of course and perhaps if Cardan was a good person, he would take her home, tuck her into bed and let her sleep off the effects of the faerie fruit in peace. But Cardan is not a good person and he stays silent as Nicasia kneels in front of Jude with a malicious glint in her eye.

“Oh Noggle, she doesn’t wish to go,” Nicasia sings. “Do you pretty thing?”

Jude looks to Nicasia with something like reverence. It’s so unlike her usual contempt that Cardan has to remind himself that she’s still the same person.

“I’d like to stay,” Jude grins at each of them in turn, her gaze landing on Cardan last. Her languid expression makes him want to be sick.

How many times, in the darkest depths of sleep, had he dreamt of her smile being turned toward him. How many times had he lay awake, wondering what it would be like to be on the receiving end of something other than hatred. How many times had he fantasized of putting her fury and passion toward more _productive_ methods of passing the time.

Noggle shuffles off, muttering to himself about princes getting their heads removed from their shoulders and Cardan clenches his fists, watching him go. He hadn’t even thought about the general. Cardan didn’t know him well, but he knew enough to know that Madoc would be out for murder if his ward was returned to him in such a state.

“I’ve never seen a mortal take the fruits of Elfhame before,” Flossflower says, plopping down next to where Nicasia and Jude sit. “Will she remember this?”

“Would that someone enchant her to do otherwise.” Locke replies, taking a few steps closer as if to get a better look. He places a reassuring hand on Jude’s shoulder and she actually leans into his touch. Cardan momentarily sees red.

“She wouldn’t want that-” Nicasia says, grabbing the fruit from the grass. “What she’d like is another bite of apple.”

Jude looks from Nicasia to the golden fruit and licks her lips.

“Can we ask her things?” Moragna pipes up, sitting down on the other side of Jude. “Embarrassing things?”

Nicasia throws Jude a wicked smile. “Why should she find anything embarrassing when she’s among friends?”

Jude watches the girls happily as if she’s always wanted to be the center of their attention.

“Which one of us would you most like to kiss?” Flossflower leans in conspiratorially.

Jude blinks slowly before answering. “I’d like to kiss all of you.”

The girls let out peels of laughter that grate Cardan’s every nerve. Jude begins to laugh as well, though it's quite clear she has no idea what’s funny.

“You’re wearing too many clothes,” Nicasia says, motioning to Jude’s grass stained skirts. “And they’ve grown dirty. You should take them off.”

“You’re right,” Jude agrees. And as the whole class looks on, she stands, unclasps her dress, and lets it fall in a puddle at her feet.

She isn’t wearing a corset or a slip. In fact, she isn’t wearing much of anything. Cardan can’t keep his eyes from roaming over the curve of her breasts, the flare of her hips, the strength of her slender legs. He knows this memory will haunt him, but what is one more torment.

“Am I beautiful like you are?” Jude asks, looking down at the girls hopefully.

“No,” Nicasia admonishes. “You are nothing like us.”

Cardan can’t help but agree with her. Jude isn’t the harsh, brutal beauty like the folk. She is so much more. She is soft and strong, warm and worldly, powerless and provisional. And so utterly alive that it makes the more carnal parts of him ache with wanting.

“You should take this off too,” Valerian murmurs from behind her, motioning to the rowan bead necklace that sits beneath her collarbones.

“You’re right,” Jude takes the chain from her neck and tosses it to the ground. “I don’t need it anymore.”

“Come lick my hands clean,” Nicasia sings, the glamor in her voice sparking the air as she flourishes her fruit stained fingers. “You don’t mind do you? But you have to do it on your knees.”

“No-” Cardan interrupts and all eyes focus on him. He has no thought other than Nicasia will not shame her this way. If anyone gets to shame Jude, it’s him. She is his to command, his to protect, his to torment, his to desire. Jude is his to make suffer for the suffering she has caused him. _She’s his._

Without a better plan, Cardan moves to stand directly in front of Jude and purposefully slips out of his shoe. “Jude will come here and kiss my foot. She said she wanted to kiss us. And I am her prince after all.”

Jude laughs again, a girlish giggle that doesn’t suit her at all.

Cardan looks down at her offensively beautiful face, standing close enough to see the splash of freckles across her nose and cheeks. He’d never noticed them before. A hot burst of shame heats his middle and Cardan thinks for a moment that Jude registers the flash of guilt crossing his face.

“Well, be quick about it,” He says impatiently, falling back into the old habits of being the absolute worst he can be. “Kiss my foot and tell me how great I am. Tell me how much you admire me.”

“Enough-” Locke interrupts sharply, pulling Jude to her feet. “I’m taking her home.”

“Are you now?” Cardan asks, narrowing his eyes. “You like the savor of a little humiliation, just not too much?”

“I hate when you get like this,” Locke murmurs under his breath. Cardan hates it too, but in this moment, he hates Locke more.

Pulling a pin from his lapel, he grabs for Jude’s hand. Her fingers are cool and rough against his skin and he tries very hard not to save that information for later. Cardan stabs the point into the pad of her thumb. She cries out in shock but Cardan makes sure he sees blood before releasing her.

“Have a nice walk home.” Cardan says venomously, letting his gaze linger on Locke before turning back to join Valerian and Nicasia.

Several students crowd around them, laughing and singing praises of the brief diversion from their regularly scheduled classes. Moragna even has the courage to slip her hand into the crook of his elbow.

Cardan laughs along with them but out of the corner of his eye he watches her. Watches as she sucks her thumb in her mouth. Watches Locke throw a borrowed blanket around her shoulders. Watches as he escorts Jude back into the woods. Watches as her expression turns from listlessness to horror and then hatred.

Watches at the object of his infernal infatuation starts to burn again from the inside out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you have any requests for more cardan pov scenes pls send them my way!! 
> 
> [tumblr](http://prinecssleia.tumblr.com/) & [twitter](https://twitter.com/prinecssleia_)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Well, I know that we've been hardly holding on_   
>  _To tell the truth, I can't believe we got this far_
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> short little update tonight... i'll be back with a longer chap tomorrow <33

The crowded banquet hall is littered with bodies all swung up in a circling dance that has Cardan seeing double. He's had several glasses of wine since he arrived, its true, but the swells and dives of the music are doing nothing for his sobriety. He passes through the throng of faeries huddled around the outskirts of the room, throwing smiles and flirtations as he goes. This is a happy occasion for them and Cardan is aware that he must play the part of the jovial youngest son.

He continues his attentions to the many guests and courtiers until he sees a tawny brown head, too dull to be fae, spinning round in the dance. Jude has done her hair up in an intricate imitation of horns and is wearing a dress that could bewitch even those in possession of the strongest of will powers. It suits her, the mortal devil that she is. The hellish beast of his nightmares.

He watches her for a time, watches her skip and smile with a gleeful hatred. How dare she enjoy herself, she who is not of this world. How dare she find a place of belonging in their courts. How dare she become the object of his infatuation.  
  
Then Cardan sees who she is dancing with, who those smiles are for, and his head fills with a red, angry static. He is moving before he can think to stop himself, setting his goblet down on a table as he goes. His mental state a mess, trying to decipher who of the two are more unworthy of the other.

As he ducks between revelers to get to them, Locke pulls her into an intimate embrace, placing a light kiss on Jude’s neck. Cardan is not compelled to violence often, but in that moment, he is sure he could kill Locke. Slowly, intimately, and painfully.

A few meters away from where they are intertwined, Locke finally sees him and his expression tightens. A sick pleasure blooms in Cardan’s chest at the thought of still having so much power over such a trickster.  
  
"Time to switch partners. Oh," Cardan says, not taking his eyes from Locke. "Did I steal your line?"

Jude stiffens at his words and if anything the white noise inside his head grows louder. Locke relinquishes Jude with a bow and gives Cardan one last glare before disappearing into the crowd.

“What do you want?” Jude bites as Cardan takes her into his arms. Her words are forced, like her confidence is shaken. “Go ahead. Insult me.”

“I don’t take commands from mortals.” Cardan replies, falling into their familiar banter.

“So you’re going to say something nice?” She says as they move through the reel. “I don’t think so. Faeries can’t lie.”

Cardan’s smile widens and he waits a moment before answering her, just to savor this. Just to take her in.

Her eyes have sparked and her jaw is set. It is such a stark contrast to her doting smiles that she flashed for Locke, but Cardan realizes that he likes this so much more. Her intensity, and her contempt. What he would do to devour her.

He moves his hand lower on her hip with the intent of pulling her close. “You really hate me, don’t you?”

“Almost as much as you hate me,” She says icily and it feels a bit like a blow to the stomach. Her words ring true and Cardan does everything in his power not to look stricken. She must know, surely she must know, that none of it was real. Cardan had convinced himself that while everyone else believed the facade of his horrid and gruesome disposition, inevitably Jude would see right through it.

How could she not when he looked at her this? When his eyes follow her every move? When his breath catches every time their eyes meet?

He’d so heavily relied on Jude as an outlet for his awfulness, that he’d never stopped to think what that had done to her.

What did that say about him?

“Until we spar again,” Cardan releases her, not able to look into her golden brown eyes for another moment without doing something he will truly regret. The crowd parts for him as he retreats, however he only takes a few steps in the opposite direction before turning to face Jude once again.

He doesn’t know whether he wants to hurl one more taunt at her inadequacies or fall on his knees and beg her forgiveness. But she has already left the dance floor, shuffling through the sea of people in the direction of her family.

Cardan watches her go, standing in the middle of the swirling chaos wondering how much wine he could consume before this infernal coronation is over with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one goes out to all my girls in the gc. yall crackheads and i love you.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _running near on empty_   
>  _i wish somebody would have told me_

The stars twinkle peacefully as if to mock Cardan's current state. He watches as Jude's silhouette disappears into the trees, leaving him alone in the warm twilight. She had ordered him to stay while she appealed to Queen Annette, as if he were an obedient hound waiting on its master.

And stay he would. 

Falling back into the grass, he turns his attention inward. It was a strange sensation, to be stuck here, the choice plucked from his awareness. Even now as he thought about possibly getting up and leaving, a hook dug in deeper just behind his navel and held him in place. 

She'd commanded him.

And he hated it. 

Hated that he no longer had control over his own situation, even for so short a time. Hated that a mortal, of all beings, was the one to finally triumph over him. Never mind the fact that he'd submitted to Jude willingly. He hated that she had to force him to stay at all. 

That she didn't trust him.

He chose not to dwell on that too long. Jude's trust was not something he should want, let alone try to earn. 

A shooting star passed in front of his vision, burning across the sky in a favorable trajectory. Noggle would be pleased that at least one of his lessons had stuck. 

Cardan sighed. He didn't put much stock in stars. They were fickle, and usually spoke of destruction. At least in his case. 

_Ruination to the throne._

The words echo through his head. Curse the stars. He'd make his own way. 

As soon as he thought it, Jude traipsed back into the clearing looking especially put out. Cardan raised a brow in question as she slumped down next to him. 

"I didn’t even get to talk to her," Heaving a heavy sigh, she dragged a hand through her hair. He watched as it fanned out in the grass, reflecting the moonlight. 

Cardan props himself up on an elbow to face her. "Then you did something wrong."

The hand that had so roughly combed her hair now pinches her nose in aggravation. He watches as her expression changes from disappointment to frustration to determiniation.

She's intoxicating. 

"Fine." She implores, turning her head on the ground to meet his gaze. He hopes his face is a mask of indifference, though he highly doubts it. "If you were me, whom would you apply to?"

He feignes thinking for a moment, casually shifting himself closer to where she is settled on the ground. 

"Lord Roiben and the Alderking's son, Severin."

Jude frowns, a little furrow appearing between her eyebrows. "But they're not part of the High Court. They haven't sworn to the crown-"

"Exactly, they have less to lose and more to gain throwing in with a plan that some might call treason." Cardan feels a glow of pride at his cleverness. His eyes drift to Jude's impossibly human ear. The reminder that she is mortal, that she is alive. He reaches out to run his fingertip over the curve. Her skin heats at his fingertip and she closes her eyes against his touch. Mortification at what he’s doing floods his veins and Cardan jerks his hand back, continuing to speak in the hopes his lapse in judgment would go ignored. "Severin reportedly favors a mortal knight and has a mortal lover, so he'll speak to you. And his father was in exile, so recognition of his Court itself would be something."

Their faces were still unreasonably close. A feverish elation takes him over at the way Jude is staring up at him, hanging on his every word as if the information he provides is her salvation. Maybe it is.

"As for Lord Roiben," He continues, letting his eyes roam the planes of her flushed face. "The stories make him seem like some figure in a tragedy. A Seelie knight, tortured for decades as a servant in the Unseelie Court he came to rule. I don't know what you offer someone like that, but he has a big enough Court that if you got him to back Oak, even Balekin would be nervous. Other than that, I know he has a consort he favors, though she is of low rank. Try not to annoy her."

He lets the corner of his mouth tip up in the hint of smirk at the thought of Jude attempting flattery. She looks thoughtful for a moment longer, digesting his words, then stands. A hot spike of panic shoots through his chest at the sight of her setting off again. She doesn't know these people. She doesn't know their customs. She doesn't know that they would torture and kill a mortal, any mortal, just for sport. 

He opens his mouth to tell her as much, but she cuts him off.

"I know," She smirks, turning back toward the encampments. "Don't bore you by dying."


End file.
